NEWS RELEASE
National Park Service
For Release: September 5, 2000 Contact: David Barna (202) 208-6843
Florence Six (402) 221-3448
DISCOVERY 2000 CONFERENCE TO
FOCUS ON BUILDING NPS LEADERSHIP

As National Park Service (NPS) leaders, managers, partners and critics gather in St. Louis, Missouri, September 11-15, one of the main focuses will be on building leadership for the future. "Discovery 2000: The National Park Service General Conference," is the first such conference held in more than 10 years. Noted author, Dr. Peter M. Senge, will be the keynote speaker for the leadership track.

Senge, a Senior Lecturer at Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management, is the founder of the Society for Organizational Learning whose members are dedicated to building knowledge about fundamental institutional change. His 1989 book, The Fifth Discipline: the Art and Practice of the Learning Organization, launched a new concept of leadership that enables organizations to learn constantly from their own experience.

The National Park Service cares for special places saved by the American people. Traditions in the 84-year old agency provide a cherished foundation upon which to build, but the Service cannot just continue building with the same tools in the same way. NPS leadership believes that in the 21st century the public will regard the national parks not by themselves, but as key elements in a national mosaic of conservation efforts.

Senge's presentation will set the tone for examining how the NPS will provide what the American people want in terms of the organization's role in preservation, conservation, and assistance to communities, while maintaining its core values. "We want Discovery 2000 to stimulate every mind to develop a vision of the National Park Service's 21st century role in the life of the nation; to inspire and invigorate the Service, its partners, and the public about this vision; and to begin to develop new leadership to meet the challenges of the future," said Dan Wenk, chairperson for the leadership track and Superintendent at Mount Rushmore National Memorial.

"Leadership isn't about budgeting or staffing or the number of interpretive programs offered. It is about understanding the core values of the organization and using them to attain a vision for the future. It is about motivating employees to do their best and working together to achieve a common purpose," said Wenk. Among the 42 concurrent sessions offered in the Leadership Track, attendees may find such sessions as:

  • Bringing our Best Qualities Forward: An Alternative Approach to Problem-Solving – Appreciative Inquiry is a method of determining direction through existing strengths rather than through identified deficiencies. In use for over 20 years, "AI" assumes that organizations move in the direction of the questions they are most commonly asked. Bud Orr, Orion Partnership, will show participants how to use Appreciative Inquiry to explore ways to continue the learning, application, and momentum of the Discovery 2000 Conference.
  • Dream Makers: Vision and Leadership – Michele Hunt, author of Dream Makers: Putting Vision and Values to Work, will lead a discussion of how compelling vision and purpose have propelled many organizations to extraordinary success. She will explore how vision can inspire the passion and purpose necessary for effective leadership in the National Park Service.
  • Bringing About the Highest Potential in Every Individual and Organization – Author of Courageous Messenger and Driving Fear Out of the Workplace, Kathleen Ryan, will discuss how leaders must encourage employees to explore their role of creating an empowered work environment that drives out fear and fosters creative thinking. This session will examine the role of the "courageous messenger," and methods of managing conflict.
  • A Safe Place for Dangerous Truths – Annette Simmons' session will delve into truth-telling and truth-testing in the National Park Service and how to use them to ensure that NPS work environments foster – rather than deter – constructive change. Simmons is the author of Territorial Games: Understanding and Ending Turf Wars at Work and A Safe Place for Dangerous Truths: Using Dialog to Overcome Fear at Work.

Creativity and innovation are not new to NPS leaders. Examples of recent and ongoing efforts to develop new ways to engage employees and the public in accomplishing the park's goals and meeting the public's needs include:

  • Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, California. Employees have a say in park management. The park uses "Stewardship Teams" formed around park districts and staffed by employees who know the resources, visitor needs, issues, and safety concerns of their areas best. The superintendent's theory of this is, "let the people sitting up front have a hand on the steering wheel." The teams are welcome to propose projects and issues and bring them before park managers. In addition to working with better information, it helps expose park personnel to the challenges and responsibilities of leadership, that's because they also have to figure out a reasonable way to get it done. Once such idea, funded through the Recreation Fee Demonstration program, resulted in animal-proof garbage cans being installed throughout the entire park.
  • Mount Rushmore National Memorial, South Dakota. Aging facilities at the Memorial needed major renovation and expansion to accommodate the increasing number of visitors. Fifty-six million dollars in private and public donations were raised through the Mount Rushmore Preservation Fund and used towards preservation of the sculpture and construction of the interpretative center, museum, amphitheater, presidential trail, orientation center, and avenue of flags. A parking facility was constructed under a concession contract with the NPS and is operated by a private concessionaire, who is allowed to collect a fee that will pay the costs of the parking facility. Thousands of visitors each day enjoy the new opportunities that are available at the memorial.
  • Fire Island National Seashore, New York. Embracing a residential community of 30,000 within its boundary, receiving 3 million visitors a year, and containing wilderness only 50 miles from downtown Manhattan, preservation of its natural barrier island systems is a critical mission. One of the innovative techniques the park superintendent uses to explain resource management issues and policies and to answer questions from visitors and park neighbors is his monthly on-line chat room called "FireIslandChat." The superintendent logs on to address a wide range of questions about beach replenishment; piping plovers, terns and other threatened and endangered species; deer over-population; the park's proactive plan to monitor mosquitoes and provide public information on mosquito-borne diseases; and visitor education programs. The public appreciates the accessibility of the superintendent and the NPS benefits through improved public relations and public understanding of policies and decisions.

The conference also will feature program tracks on Cultural Resource Stewardship, Natural Resource Stewardship, and Education. Featured keynote speakers for these tracks will be John Hope Franklin, Edward O. Wilson, and Maya Angelou, respectively.

Following each keynote, conference participants will choose from a broad selection of instructive lectures, field workshops, and in-depth dialogues that consider plausible future scenarios and what the Service might do to prepare for them. Topics range from an evolving conservation/preservation ethic, achieving broad acceptance of sustainable practices, and integrity and accountability in management systems, to changing practices necessary to remain relevant and accessible to an increasingly diverse constituency.

Discovery 2000, the logistics and the workshops, are detailed at www.nps.gov/discovery2000. Most workshop events and all keynote speakers will be at the Conference hotel, Regal Riverfront, 200 S. 4th Street, St. Louis, Missouri, Monday through Friday, September 11-15, 2000.

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